Blessed JJose Sanchez Del Rio

 

 

On October 16th, the Church will recognize the teenage martyr of the Cristero revolt for religious liberty, Blessed Blessed Jose Sanchez Del Rio as a saint of the universal church.

 

They were fighting for their religious liberty to worship Christ the King (whose feast, not so incidentally, was proclaimed for the universal church by Pius XI in 1925.)

Whether the Callas regime was motivated by its socialism, communism, sheer egotism, or free masonry may be fun to debate, but the crucified Mexicans and the numerous martyrs were the fruits by which we know that regime's true nature.

Religious liberty is under attack here in the United States by dogmatic secularists who are willing to use the power of the state to suppress it as they are Brussels and Ottawa among other places. The case of the Little Sisters of the Poor and the challenge to state Blaine amendments are before a Supreme Court suffering from the loss of Anton Scalia. We need prayer and fasting.

Religious liberty is a fundamental human right that inheres in our god-given human nature and that the church has dealt with it differently over the centuries. To my mind, how the church should treat this right is prudential rather than dogmatic. I appreciate anti Vatican II Catholics and I may differ on this.

History does not treat the consequences of using state power to impose Catholicism kindly. It is no coincidence that the areas where Charlemagne imposed Christianity by the sword were the strongholds of the Protestant Revolt seven centuries later (Niedersachsen and Martin Luther's own Sachsen Anhalt.) The sins of the fathers fall to the sons even to seven centuries. Increasingly even the secularists are coming to appreciate the wisdom of Benedict's address in Regensburg, an address that seems prescient in light of the Brussels attacks. 

 

¡Viva Cristo Rey!

Paul Scalia's homily for his father, Justice Antonin Scalia

Those of us who have lived in the Diocese of Arlington are familiar with the eloquence of Paul Scalia's homilies.  What a difficult task it must have been to give the homily for his own father and before such audiences.  

This homily is not sentimental, but it is moving and full of power.  It is worth the sixteen minutes.  Rhetoric is a dying art and the word "rhetoric" has become a synonym for sophistry, but this is worthy of a Demosthenes or a Cicero. 







I will not analyze the homily in detail.  Michael Pakaluk provides an excellent analysis in Crisis.

Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Paul Scalia reconciled back into the church, was a lector doing a reading from Romans.  Senator Cruz, a Southern Baptist, interrupted his campaign to attend the funeral.  You can read an account of the funeral in the New York Times.

Rubio on His Faith

Marco Rubio was asked about his personal relationship with Jesus by an obviously Protestant audience. How many of us could respond so spontaneously and so well?



To my mind, this is not your everyday politician!